Volcanoes: Earth's Fiery Belch and the CO2 Elephant in the Room, By James Reed and Brian Simpson

Fellow climate change sceptics you know the drill: every time the temperature ticks up a notch or a polar bear looks a bit sad, we're bombarded with headlines about how humanity's barbecues and SUVs are single-handedly turning the planet into a giant sauna. But let's pause the panic and zoom out to the bigger picture. What about nature's contributions? Specifically, those majestic, molten mood swings we call volcanoes. Right now, as we type this on a crisp October morning in 2025, there are about 44 volcanoes around the world that are actively erupting or in continuous unrest, like a global game of geological whack-a-mole. That's not some dusty stat from a textbook; that's today's tally, with fresh lava flows from places like Kīlauea in Hawaii and Fuego in Guatemala reminding us that Mother Earth has her own agenda.

And here's the kicker: these fiery vents aren't just putting on a light show. They're exhaling carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other gases that add to the atmospheric cocktail we call greenhouse gases. Globally, volcanoes and related geological hotspots belch an estimated 280 to 360 million metric tons of CO₂ every year. That's 0.28 to 0.36 gigatons (Gt) if you're into the big units. For context, when we talk CO₂-equivalent (CO₂e) emissions, the full suite of warming gases, humanity's total output clocked in at a record 53.2 Gt in 2024 alone. So yeah, volcanoes aren't outpacing us; they're more like the quirky sidekick to our blockbuster villain role. But 0.3 Gt? That's not chump change. It's equivalent to the annual emissions of a mid-sized country like Spain or Australia, all courtesy of Earth's inner plumbing.

Now, why does this matter to you, the discerning sceptic who's tired of carbon taxes and virtue-signalling hybrids? Because it underscores a simple, infuriating truth: climate isn't a tidy human monopoly. Volcanoes have been at this gig for billions of years, long before we figured out how to smelt iron or doom-scroll X. Take the Deep Carbon Observatory's deep dive (pun intended), they pegged Earth's total carbon stash at a mind-boggling 1.85 billion Gt, most of it locked away in the mantle and core. Every rumble and eruption is just a fraction of that ancient inventory recycling back to the surface. Subaerial volcanoes (the land-dwellers we see on the news) mix with submarine ones along mid-ocean ridges, quietly dissolving CO₂ into the seas. It's a natural flux, as steady as the tides, and it fluctuates with tectonic tantrums. A big blowout like Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull in 2010 can spike outputs temporarily, rivalling a city's worth of cars for a hot minute. But on average? It's a persistent hum in the background symphony of planetary gases.

Fellow sceptics, let's lean into the irony here. We're shelling out trillions on net-zero dreams, capping wells, taxing farts from cows, and geoengineering the skies, while these 44 (and counting) volcanoes laugh in basalt. Can we "plug them up," as the uni students may suggest? Ha! Imagine the UN summit: "Resolution 2026: Drill into Mauna Loa and shove in a giant cork." Good luck with that. Volcanoes are pressure cookers powered by 4.5 billion years of plate tectonics. Shutting one down? You'd need to rewrite geology. We've got tech to monitor them (satellite swarms and seismic nets), but taming them? That's sci-fi territory, reserved for movies where the hero is a rogue seismologist with a PhD in plot armour.

Volcanoes remind us that the climate system is a wild beast, not a spreadsheet we can audit into submission. Natural sources like these, plus wildfires, wetlands, and ocean outgassing, contribute variability that models struggle to pin down. And here's the sceptic's silver lining: if nature's already flexing this muscle, maybe our tweaks aren't the only lever. It invites humility, less alarmism, more curiosity. What if we invested as much in understanding deep-Earth carbon cycles as we do in shaming plastic straws?

So next time a climate warrior wags a finger at your road trip, tip your hat to the nearest rumbling peak. It's out there, unapologetically venting, proving that some CO₂ comes gift-wrapped from the gods of geology. We can't cork the craters, but we can appreciate the chaos. After all, in a universe of black holes and big bangs, a little volcanic flatulence is just Earth keeping it real.

What do you think, should we start a petition for "Volcano Emission Credits"?